Of Pipes and Pens
by Windslayer
Summary: Because the lives of the two men of 221b Baker Street are never dull, even on the most seemingly ordinary days. Drabble series. No particular order, nonslash.
1. Fireside

**A/N**: This is a first for me, a true, 100-word-each drabble series, written to give my muse a kick in the pants and to explore new types of writing. Updates will be 3-4 drabbles per week. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

It first became apparent to me one night as we were seated in our respective armchairs by the fire. It was a miserable night outside, cold, windy, rainy. We sat there for several hours with a pot of tea between us, I scribbling some notes for a future monograph, Watson with another of his horrid romances, easing into conversation every so often, both of us grateful that there were no patients or cases that needed attending.

It was that night, for the first time in my adult life, that the word 'friend' did not sit acidly upon my tongue.


	2. Question

I hypothesized that having a doctor as a flatmate could be useful to me someday, but it was not until I arrived home clutching a left arm that was swiftly losing blood that I truly realized how important a role such an individual could play. It was with silence and professionalism that my wounds were cleaned, stitched and bandaged with intricate care. The man did not question where the cuts had originated, though I could easily sense the curiosity welling up inside him and threatening to burst.

Perhaps I should let that particular kettle boil just a little while longer...


	3. Bees!

"Bees?"

"Please, Watson, you can't begin to contemplate the intricacies of the–"

"But bees! You, you of all men are trading the criminals of London for bees in Sussex?"

At first I thought that, in my old age, my ears were simply losing their ability. But alas, my longtime friend is truly informing me that he is closing up shop, as it were, and separating himself from the hustle and bustle of London life. It is with less incredulity and more certainly more emotion than I intended that I vocalize my next statement.

"So. You're going away again then?"


	4. Bees! II

Holmes pauses and reflects, easily seeing through my poorly guarded statement. I am already regretting my words, even more so when I notice his eyes flash with a feeling unfamiliar to them. Remorse? But it is gone as quickly as it arrived, covered up by that near unbeatable mask and I can sense his inner debate between utterance and silence. When he begins, each word is carefully chosen.

"I am trading London for Sussex, the complexities of the hives for those of the criminal underworld," he admits. "But I am not exchanging the companionship of insects for that of yours."


	5. Bees! III

There is a moment of silence. I can see the guilt compounding upon Holmes and I am about to apologize for the overabundant criticism I have given his decision when he suddenly turns away from me to examine my shelves of medical texts.

"You're welcome, of course... to come down now and again," he says, apparently to the bookcase.

I am careful not to let him see the small smile that has stolen over my features.

"Perhaps once in a while," I reply. "London is dreadful in the summer. I could possibly bear the ride to Sussex to escape it."


	6. Balance?

It is nights such as these, when I hear my friend's uneven tread upon the wooden floorboards overhead late into the night that I shy away from my typical little problems and contemplate the nature of much larger matters. My dear Watson has been shot, been injured for life, lost a wife, abandoned for three years by myself and beset by hideous nightmares still of war, yet he remains still the most patient and best man I have ever known.

There is supposed to be balance in this universe. What is the counterweight that keeps him from drowning in pain?


	7. Music

It is a cellist and not a violinist, who is the star of tonight's performance.

At the first sweep of the bow across those tenor strings, a strange spell takes over Holmes. He closes his eyes and leans forward in his seat, as if worried that he will miss a single note of the virtuoso's beautiful performance. Only once does he turn to me.

"Watson," he whispers, almost dreamily. "Out of all the instruments, it is only the cello that truly has the capacity to cry."

He is musing and silent the entirety of the walk back to Baker Street.


	8. Music II

Despite prejudice and protest, she has risen to become one of the premier cellists in the world; her playing is truly a sight to behold. But midway through her performance the hypnotic spell is broken by a small sound from my companion. I turn to look and am astounded at the brightness of his eyes and if the sentiment were not so far from my friend's usual sphere, I should say the sound was a sob.

Later, as we repose before the fire, Holmes lifts his eyes from his teacup and focuses his gaze upon me.

"My mother... was an excellent cellist."


	9. Music III

"Often, after supper, she would wander into the sitting room and begin to play. Sometimes she played for us, sometimes she played just for herself. Mycroft frequently accompanied her on piano, for even at twelve he was playing just below a professional level. Her three sons all inherited her talent for music."

"And then did you join in when your own musical abilities-" My eagerness to inquire into Holmes' past is cut short by a slow, sad shake of his head.

"She... died. She died when I was seven. I wouldn't even look at an instrument for another eight years.


	10. Music IV

Holmes begins to speak more slowly and deliberately now, as if dragging every word that passes his lips up from the bottom of a deep well.

"I don't remember her face." He looks back down into his teacup, ashamed of this fact. "I remember some things. Auburn hair, grey eyes. That is all. But I do remember her music. I remember how she made her cello speak and laugh and cry and made her children weep with the majesty of it all. That is how I know she was beautiful. A woman who could play like that must have beautiful."


	11. Landlady

**A/N: **Thank you for all the lovely reviews, they are much appreciated! The following is another multipart arc that isn't going where you think it is, but I had the most fun writing it out of all the drabbles thus far. Please enjoy!

* * *

It is with much trepidation that I wait for the woman tramping up the stairs to enter our rooms. Upon her entrance our spirited landlady shoots me a heated look, then proceeds to ignore me altogether while she places our dinner on the sideboard. After steadying her charge she immediately rounds on me.

"Again?" she exclaims, shaking a copy of _The Strand_ at me. I am most certainly _not _cowering under the tiny woman's glare.

"Every story it's 'Mrs. Hudson.' 'Mrs. Hudson!' You make me sound like a doddering old woman!"

"But Jenny, you were marri-"

"I'm younger than you!"


	12. Landlady II

When feeling especially put upon by who could be called perhaps the worst tenant in London, Jenny Hudson was known to fly into a bit of a temper, causing both Holmes and I to go out into the world in search of a meal, through rain, fog, or blistering heat. I would have found it fascinating to know that even when I was the cause of her flights of anger dinner was still to be had, were I not more concerned with the situation directly at hand.

"Well?" she demands, eyes blazing. "What do you plan to do about it?"


	13. Landlady III

"I've never described what you look like, why should the public think you an old woman?"

"No one thinks of a young widow! Widows are supposed to be old ladies! Your _public_ now thinks I'm an adorable grey haired grandmother who positively dotes on my insane tenants!"

"Well what would you have me do?" I reply, far more calmly. "If I tell the world that you were barely into your twenties when you lent rooms to two bachelors only a few years older than you than rumors of scandal at Baker Street will forever to plague the lot of us."


	14. Landlady IV

"Think of Edward," I continue in a soothing tone. "Would he want his future bride to be the subject of foul rumors and gossip?"

She betrays a small smile at the mention of her fiancé, and I breathe a sigh of relief. The storm has passed. For now.

Five minutes later, Holmes slowly emerges from his room. I do not insinuate aloud that he had purposefully sought refuge once he sensed the makings of a monsoon, but I hope the expression I offer him as he takes his seat across from me at the table carries the message with vigor.


	15. Landlady V

I find that I have been entirely misled in my previous assumption that Jenny was more sympathetic to my abuses of her good nature than Holmes'. There is a dinner in front of me, but I am not sure that it is at all edible.

"Watson," Holmes begins, making a face as he swallows a forkful of potatoes, "Never even insinuate in your stories that Jenny Hudson is an old woman. I believe the future of our sustenance depends on it."

I laugh, and wonder if, in retribution for my empty stomach, a pseudonym will escape the notice of our hotheaded landlady.

* * *

**A/N:** This concludes the Landlady arc! Aaaaaand that's why the old woman in LAST that everyone identifies with Mrs. Hudson is named Martha. A bit whimsical of the good doctor, but I do hate to think what Jenny Hudson might do to him were she ever to find out...


	16. Regret

The tall, thin man stared in horror as the shorter man collapsed to the floor. Casting aside the various accessories of his disguise, the tall man lost no time in easing his friend onto the sofa, opening his collar and locating a bottle of strong brandy. Upon the shorter man's return to consciousness, the expression shut itself up into a stony mask. It was not until twenty minutes later, after the shorter man's tirade, - in which the word betrayal was mentioned multiple times - and subsequent departure that the expression of sheer and utter horror was allowed to return.


	17. Move

The rooms are rather plain but the price is fair and the space decent. There are two bedrooms and a sitting room, serving as both a drawing room and dining area. Space aplenty is what I'm sure I shall require and from my observations I can trust this particular roommate not to waste my time with constant meaningless chatter. Still, I long for the day in which I may move to an environment more fitting my unusual profession. Perhaps then the chemistry set needn't sit next to a shelf full of case files.

This situation is, after all, only temporary.


	18. Empty

It has been two months since Holmes departed London for Sussex, and I must declare that I am going rather mad from sheer boredom. Indeed, it is somewhat comforting not to be woken up and three in the morning by Holmes' violin, being dragged out of bed at any hour of the day or night to assist on a case, being snapped at during one of his black moods or being ignored completely from time to time, but the counterpoint of the sheer monotony I have been living with day by day has been turning me into an inmate of Bedlam.


	19. Empty II

I begin the long walk home from my practice, wondering if I should contact Holmes through telegram or letter. I do not wish to be bothersome to my old friend, but I wish to know how he is settling in to his new environment. The maid greets me as I walk in, claiming to have left a message for me in the study. I climb the stairs to the first landing and push open the door.

"Really Watson, you must think of coming home at a more reasonable hour."

Seeing Holmes' wry smile again causes my heart to swell.


	20. Miss

_My Dearest Watson – _

_I've just arrived in India and already there is an investigation underfoot. My brother has made me swear not to engage in my 'usual methods' as he calls them, and as such I am having a difficult time of solving the case while simultaneously pretending that I know nothing about it. I believe that you would find it particularly interesting, perhaps a subject for a-_

The letter is suddenly torn from the desk and ripped to pieces by the author. It is the twelfth letter to go down this path, and will be far from the last.


	21. Why?

"There was a death today down at the hospital Holmes," I awkwardly begin.

"And what the devil does that have to do with me?" He recognizes what is coming.

"It was death from a cocaine overdose."

Holmes merely shrugs, as I suspected he would and avoids my gaze.

"As I thought. Nothing to do with me, my dear Watson."

He doesn't think I know. Doesn't think I can recognize the fact that the doses are getting higher. Or else, heaven help us, he already realizes that I know, and does nothing to stop it because he is powerless to stop himself.


	22. Calling

"Don't be an idiot, it's a night fit for neither man nor beast."

He ignores me, without even shooting me one of his higher duty to man speeches I deplore so utterly. I somehow manage to uncurl myself from my armchair and shake some of the blackness off as I follow him down the stairs in some vague attempt to keep him from leaving, for what reason I have not yet determined.

"Good night Holmes."

The fog curls around my companion's toes as he wanders off into the night, his tools secure in the bag he carries at his side.


	23. Calling II

I sit in my armchair, filling the room with smoke and staring haughtily between the window and the clock, wishing that the timepiece would run slower and the rain and wind would lash less forcefully against the glass.

I am not worried, though I do wish the doctor would come home out of the weather like a sensible human being and not be called upon during such circumstances to head across town when there is rain and wind and his knee is going to be acting up and why in the world am I still so concerned about this?


	24. Calling III

It has been far too long. I fumble over to the table and grab the missive that called Watson away, registering the address as I haul on my overcoat and fling the card onto the floor. I slam the door behind me and stamp down the stairs, causing my landlady to yell something angrily and unintelligible from behind her own closed door.

There is no cabbie to be had and I must make the journey on foot.

The address, two miles away, is found with ease, but upon peeking in the first floor window, I fight the urge to curse very loudly.


	25. Calling IV

The good doctor is asleep in a chair beside the bed of a child, safe and warm and most certainly not lying sick and dying in a gutter or in some sort of life threatening danger. I grumble to myself, wishing I had never left the relative safety of my rooms and wondering what sort of delusion I must have been under in order to believe that striking out alone on this miserable evening was a rational decision?

I turn for home and begin a bout of coughing, all the while searching for the answer to my own befuddling question.


	26. Calling V

I am not in the most pleasant of moods after sleeping in an armchair beside the bed of a sick child, but I accept the thanks and tears of the parents graciously before heading out into the sunlight, eager to return home.

Holmes is lying on the sofa when I arrive, looking sick and miserable. I make the diagnosis, a simple cold that will soon clear up, and he mumbles his reasoning, of course some case that took him halfway across London in the dead of night during a rainstorm. I head upstairs to my bed, hoping he feels better by afternoon.


	27. Homecoming

Jenny marches straight up to her three-years-dead tenant and promptly slaps him across the face. Yet it seems to lack the force he believes it could well possess were the woman so inclined.

"How could you... you... Making believe like you were dead!"

Then, miracle of miracles, the eyes of the long suffering Jenny Hudson fill with tears as she embraces Holmes and buries her face into his shoulder. Completely taken aback, Holmes awkwardly pats her head before she withdraws, wiping her eyes with her dress sleeve and assuming her customary devilish smile.

"Watson was furious with you, wasn't he?"


	28. Dawn

The first light of the sun bursts down the street and slaps me in the face as we stand outside the offices of Scotland Yard at this ungodly hour, covered in mud and filth.

I stare squinting into the sunlight, remarking on the absurdity of the previous evening's events, and feeling the siren's call of my bed back at Baker Street. Holmes must share my sentiments, but instead of calling a cab, he begins the slow trudge back to our rooms. I have no choice but to follow, and we wend our way home in the light of the sunrise.


	29. Breakfast

It was my curse that I would wake tired, aching, bleary eyed, half drunk with exhaustion, trudge down the stairs like a man to his execution, blink furiously at the sunlight already streaming through the windows, and be greeted cheerily by a man who either hadn't slept or had been up since before the dawn, sitting before a breakfast he had no desire to eat.

Though my dark morning mood was considerably lifted once I was greeted at the table by a fresh cup of steaming tea and an exclamation from my companion as he stumbled upon some new case.


	30. Sandalwood

**A/N:** Following the same pattern as in my other Holmes fics, my Holmes was an atheist until Tibet, where he became interested in Buddhism and Taoism. He is a bit critical of organized religion on the whole. Fair warning for the next two drabbles.

* * *

Watson has found the chest I brought back from Tibet. I thought it would be safe from his ever curious eyes in the back of my closet hidden under a mountain of case files but alas! his desire to aid me in the mess I have made of our rooms has resulted in the divulgement of this treasure. It is not that I do not wish for him to ever know of its contents, but my own conflicting thoughts on the matter cause me to be discreet. I slowly open the lid and withdraw my _mala_ from its embroidered bag.


	31. Sandalwood II

**A/N: **Again, fair warning.

* * *

My _mala_ is unlike the Catholic rosary. There are 108 beads in a single ring, made of the sweet smelling seeds of the Bodhi tree. There is no rigid doctrine for what I can and cannot say upon each bead, no illogical pattern of empty nothings. There is only the endless repetition of a single phrase, a soothing escape from a mind that refuses to stop or sleep without unnatural influence. It is not a way for me to buy my way into an afterlife. It is simply a tool used to steal peace and freedom in this world.


	32. Sandalwood III

**A/N: **No warnings here. Smiles!

* * *

I had grown so used to opening the door of our shared flat in Baker Street to the smell of strong tobacco billowing into the hallway while my friend was contemplating a particular difficult case that I was almost physically thrown back over the threshold by the strange, new, not _altogether_ unpleasant aroma that greeted me upon my entrance.

"By God Holmes, what is that – that –" I stifled a cough.

Holmes looked up at me, his eyes dancing with amusement.

"Watson!," he began in feigned indignance. "I thought you'd be glad to see me trade the tobacco for Chinese incense!"


	33. Hiatus

The sparrow watches intently as the man winds his way through the stone monuments, holding a bouquet. His familiarity has made him a trusted visitor to the cemetery, one that she would not be inclined to hide her children from. He follows the same pattern as he does each time, laying the flowers beneath the shadow of one headstone and standing before it for several moments. Then he moves to the stone beneath her tree, and while he leaves no flowers here, he stands for thirty long minutes, sometimes murmuring words, one side of a lost conversation dangling in space.


	34. Clay

A little grey-eyed boy studies the rainwater trapped in a footprint. It's a large footprint, made by the boot of his father as he walked through the rain during the early hours of the morning. He wonders where his father goes so early. There are little blades of grass growing around the depression in the ground, soft green blades that hint at the coming spring.

The boy presses his hand into the footprint and the dirt and water squelch up between his fingers. His face crinkles into a grin as the wind blows past, murmuring whispers from the future.


End file.
